Theories of meaning and logical constants: Davidson versus Evans
Mind 111 (442):249-280 (2002)
| Abstract | Donald Dvaidson has claimed that a theory of meaning identifies the logical constants of the object language by treating them in the phrasal axioms of the theory, and that the theory entails a relation of logical consequence among the sentences of the object language. Section 1 offers a preliminary investigation of these claims. In Section 2 the claims are rebutted by appealing to Evans's paradigm of a theory of meaning. Evans's theory is deliberately blind to any relation of logical consequence among the sentences of the object language, and entails only what Evans takes to be a distinct and deeper relation of structural validity among the sentences of the object language. In Section 3 we turn to Evans's motivation in order to compare the two paradigms of a theory of meaning. Evans laid down criteria under which a theory of meaning gives what he called a ‘transcendent’ semantic classification of the lexicon of the object language, in contrast to a mere ‘immanent’ classification. However, when these criteria are applied we find that, pace Evans, they favour Davidson's paradigm over Evans's. In the final section we show that Evans's conception of structural consequence turns out to be a deeper formulation of logical consequence. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesTimm Triplett (1994). Is There Anthropological Evidence That Logic is Culturally Relative?: Remarks on Bloor, Jennings, and Evans-Pritchard. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2):749-760.
Alice G. B. ter Meulen (2003). From Frege to Dynamic Theories of Meaning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6):691-692.
Panu Raatikainen (2008). On Rules of Inference and the Meanings of Logical Constants. Analysis 68 (300):282-287.
R. M. Sainsbury (1999). Names, Fictional Names, and 'Really': R.M. Sainsbury. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 73 (1):243–269.
Wang Lu (2008). Theories of Meaning. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 3 (1):83-98.
H. G. Callaway (1988). Semantic Competence and Truth-Conditional Semantics. Erkenntnis 28 (1):3 - 27.
Mark Sainsbury (2005). Names in Free Logical Truth Theory. In José Luis Bermúdez (ed.), Thought, Reference, and Experience: Themes From the Philosophy of Gareth Evans. Clarendon Press.
Miguel Hoeltje (2007). Theories of Meaning and Logical Truth: Edwards Versus Davidson. Mind 116 (461):121 - 129.
Jim Edwards (2007). Response to Hoeltje: Davidson Vindicated? Mind 116 (461):131-141.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads39 ( #29,796 of 549,069 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,185 of 549,069 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
